Imtiaz Ali on His New Movie “Highway”

For the generation that’s grown up with his films, director Imtiaz Ali, has been a modern-day Yash Chopra, portraying love on screen simply and without cliché. From “Jab We Met” staring Kareena Kapoor, to “Love Aaj Kal” with Deepika Padukone, Mr. Ali has captured travails of modern romance in conservative rural and urban India.

Yet he insists he is not a connoisseur of the love-story genre.

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“I just write characters and somehow they happen to be a boy and a girl. When the story is put together, and their characters interwoven, they do end up together somehow,” Mr. Ali said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal.

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Alia Bhatt, second from right, posed for a photograph with local shepherds during the shoot of ‘Highway.’

His next film, “Highway”, he says, is certainly not a love story, although it might look like one: A city-bred girl (played by Alia Bhatt) and a boy from the country (portrayed by Randeep Hooda) set out on a road trip in which the subtext is that they also map out their own internal struggles with the world. “Through the journey they discover certain things about themselves, about each other and also about life,” he said.

“It is an organic story about two humans and it has stayed with me for 15 years,” Mr. Ali added.

The idea that life is a journey is what drives Mr. Ali’s thought processes and he uses the trope in many of his films. “Through travel you discover a new aspect to your personality. You discover things which you wouldn’t seated in the confines of your home. Even when my characters travel there is a certain growth you see in them.”

In his debut venture “Socha Na Tha” the journey was Aditi’s (played by Ayesha Takia) in overcoming her initial unwillingness to travel to Goa with the man who had rejected her hand in marriage. In “Jab We Met” it was Aditya’s (played by Shahid Kapoor), in his desire to run away from all his problems.

Travel has also been a central motif in the director’s own life. He recalls growing up in Jamshedpur, in what is now Jharkhand state, and traveling with family and friends during vacations. “Coming from a middle class background, travel was always considered a luxury then, even if it meant going to a relatives place or a religious shrine,” the director said. When he moved to Delhi for his higher studies, he enjoyed taking an unreserved seat to the capital on the train because of the people he met.

Once a Rajasthani family started treating him like their son-in-law, focusing their attention and care on him. “I had no idea why they were doing that. But these things and cultures you experience only when you travel,” he said. Travel has also helped him meet new people and also start a few new friendships. It has also kept his desire to know more about the world sharp. “Even today, I am curious to know about a region, its locals, its traditions, its delicacies. And I am always learning new stuff about a place through shooting there.”

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Imtiaz Ali, in the front seat, near the northwestern Indian city of Alwar, Rajasthan.

When he set out to make “Highway” it was curiosity that drove him, he says.

Cast and the crew travelled through six north Indian states and 15 towns and cities with a skeletal script, Mr. Ali kept filling in the details and the dialogues as they shot. “In order to keep it raw, I shot the film in a chronological manner. This also helped in character progression,” he said. However, shooting it this way presented difficulties. “We used a lot of natural light, so we had to depend on the sun a lot. There were days when it was cloudy and we couldn’t do much.”

Since the crew was travelling a lot, Mr. Ali made sure the equipment used for shooting was minimal, using a hand-held digital camera wherever possible. Artificial lighting was used only while filming at night and trolley shots were avoided to allow a better view of the North Indian countryside. Despite tough conditions, unexpected rainfalls and several weather hazards during shooting in summer 2013, Mr. Ali is happy with the way his film has turned out. “I have been true to this story and it’s been the closest to my heart for very long.”

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